Mizzou is the Little Engine that Couldn't...and Never Will Be.

This may destroy my fellow Mizzoobs' spirits, but I must reveal my honest opinion on Mizzou athletics.

Okay, so we have a baseball and track national title. Well, thank God we can claim something! But at the same time who cares? Worthless titles are worthless.

The truth is that we've never accomplished anything significant in football or basketball. Everytime we've been close to achieving something significant, we shoot ourselves in the foot and ruin what could have been a great thing.

This is the true story of Mizzou's athletic history.

We Mizzoobs act as if we have a program that is far better than reality. Sure, we've had flashes of brilliance, but those have been few and far between. Like trying to capture lightning in a bottle, we've never been able to sustain success.

I don't see the state of Mizzou Athletics changing anytime soon. We'll continue to accomplish nothing significant. We'll have decent seasons that will be overshadowed by terrible seasons. We'll continue to hire subpar coaches expecting more out of them than what they are capable of producing. We'll never pull the trigger for a superstar coach. We'll forever lament disappointing seasons and we'll act as if we don't understand why everything is going wrong.

Whether Mizzou fans admit this or not, the truth is that this is entirely in our blood. We are the Show Me State. What that means is that Missourians require outsiders to prove to us that they are worthy.

Think about that for a moment. Non-Missourians must prove their worth to us rather than us prove our worth to them.

Let me translate: We'll never offer the biggest contract in college football because we'll forever be too worried that it could be a huge mistake. We'll never take big risks that could reap big rewards (other than the move to the SEC - I admit that I was shocked by the move).

The move to the SEC was, in terms of our athletic history, very un-Missouri like. Perhaps winds of change are in the air. However I seriously doubt it.

We are Mizzou. We are average.

-Killz